


Come Marching Home

by ladylangst



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Langst, haggar's druids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-08 00:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15231105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylangst/pseuds/ladylangst
Summary: Keith shakes his head a bit to refocus and takes a deep breathe. ‘Patience yields focus’. His heart pounds and everything around him slows. He steps around the corner and swings his sword low. It catches on the galra’s legs and sends the officer to the ground. Keith hears Lance’s bayard go off and he knows that he doesn’t need to worry about an attack from behind.





	Come Marching Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I hope you guys like this! I've run into a bit of writer's block recently, but I was hit with this!

He takes a deep breath in, opens his eyes, and lets the air rush out of his lungs.

_“Leaves from the vine_

_Falling so slow_

_Like fragile, tiny shells_

_Drifting in the foam…”_

Steady footsteps cut through the stillness in the corridor like a knife. Keith shifts where he’s crouched against the wall and looks up at his teammate. Lance shakes his head at him and motions for him to stay in place. The lumbering footsteps are growing louder with every second.

Keith doesn’t move when the steps stop just around the corner where he’s positioned. His eyes trail up to where Lance is resting in the rafters. He nods and readjusts his bayard. The rifle is now trained on a spot just to the left of Keith. He takes this as the go ahead and rises quietly, sword in hand.

The Galra officer around the corner is speaking quietly to someone. Hopefully he’s just using his comm. Pidge has video surveillance of the 90% of the ship, but the engine room doesn’t have any cameras. That’s why Lance is with Keith on this mission. He’s covering Keith’s back so that they can get in, sabotage the engine, and get out safely.

Keith shakes his head a bit to refocus and takes a deep breathe. _‘Patience yields focus’_. His heart pounds and everything around him slows. He steps around the corner and swings his sword low. It catches on the galra’s legs and sends the officer to the ground. Keith hears Lance’s bayard go off and he knows that he doesn’t need to worry about an attack from behind.

There’s only one engineer in the room and Keith takes him out easily. He quickly pulls out the mini adhesive bombs that Hunk and Pidge developed and places them on the sides of the various machines. He makes sure to place at least five on the actual engine.

As soon as he’s placed all of the bombs, he starts to leave the room. He turns on the comm in his helmet and whispers;

“Lance, is it all clear?”

“Yeah, you’re good to come out. Was there any trouble in there?” He asks.

“No. There was one galra. We should hurry out, he might have raised an alarm when he heard the other guy go down.” Keith replies as he steps over the fallen officer outside of the door. He looks up to see Lance grinning down at him.

“Alright. I’ll meet you down there in a sec.” His face disappears from view as he begins to climb down. After a minute he’s right beside Keith.

Keith doesn’t say anything before moving down the corridor they came from. He was completely serious about needing to hurry. Their lions are on the other side of the ship, and Pidge is stationed too far away to help in an emergency. If anyone were to alert the troops to their presence…

He shakes his head once more and stops at an intersection. He can feel Lance come up behind him. 

There isn’t anyone in the hall, so they both start making their way down it at a slight jog. Their footsteps echo around the metal walls, Keith flinches inwardly with every soft clang. 

They move quickly and quietly, for the most part, and soon they’re at the entrance to the hangar where their lions are waiting. The door is closed but the control panel is still sparking from where Lance shot it earlier. He had thought they’d left it open, but maybe he’s just remembering wrong? He shakes his head and looks to lance for the go ahead.

Lance looks around one last time for any stray soldiers before nodding at Keith. The black paladin lodges his sword between the wall and the door and pushes the door open wide enough for them to get through. As soon as Lance is in he removes his bayard and jumps through as well. 

The door falls shut behind him. 

His eyes scan the room as he follows Lance to their lions. The room is eerily silent and it’s putting Keith’s nerves on edge. He glances around the room once more before whispering;

“Lance, I think we should-” his statement is cut off as a blast goes right past his ear. Lance’s bayard glows with residual heat. Keith whips around, weapon drawn, to find a druid lying on the floor. The worlds seems to stop for a single second, and then everything is happening too fast. 

Dozens of druid drop from the ceiling and melt out of the walls. Lance is shouting and Keith is too, but he has no idea what’s being said. The air buzzes with magic and he swears that he can hear Haggar’s laughter, but it could just be the adrenaline. He takes a blow to the head and stumbles, but he rights himself quickly and keeps fighting.

“Keith!”

Suddenly Lance is grabbing his arm and dragging him towards their lions. He runs with him, swinging his sword at any druid that enters his line of sight. He can hear the sound of Lance’s bayard firing rapidly. It’s calming in a way. 

He reaches his lion first, with Lance at his side until he can touch his lion’s particle barrier. As soon as it’s down he slides through, and then it’s back up again. He turns back to make sure the other paladin makes it to his lion okay, but there are at least a hundred enemies in the room now.

They swarm the Red paladin. His bayard is going off like crazy, taking the enemies down quickly and efficiently, but Keith knows it’s not good enough. His lungs burn as he runs forward to help. Black won’t drop her shield though. He pounds at it, striking it with his sword and kicking at it. Nothing works.

His eyes raise to meet Lance’s through the throng separating them. It happens so quickly that Keith doesn’t even know if it was real. Then Lance is falling, and the druids are turning to face Keith, who’s still trapped by his lion.

He doesn’t care though.

He doesn’t care because the red paladin is lying on the floor with a smoking hole in his chest, because _Lance_ is on the ground, and he’s not moving.

Keith knows that he’s not going to get up again.

His ears ring and his breath comes in short gasps. He doesn’t hear Red when she takes off, but he can see her go. He feels Black pick him up in her mouth, but he doesn’t look away from his fallen teammate, not until his view is blocked by the inside of Black.

Then he’s angry.

Why didn’t they do anything!?! Red has saved Keith dozens of times! She didn’t even try to help Lance! And now he’s just gone!

Keith stands and stumbles to his seat, tugging at his helmet as he goes. It wasn’t anything like he imagined one of their deaths would be. He knew it was a risk of course, but never like this.

There weren’t any momentous last words. Lance didn’t die surrounded by the team, or go out in a blaze of glory. He didn’t even die next to Keith. He died on a minor mission, surrounded by the enemy.

He wasn’t supposed to die. Keith can’t even remember what his last words were. They were lost in the battle, drowned out by the sound of buzzing magic. Gosh, what was Keith going to tell the team? Or Lance’s family for that matter? Lance’s body was still on the ship! He couldn’t even make sure that his friend would get a proper burial!

Keith drops his head in his hands.

He thinks back to the day before, when Lance had been talking about how much he missed his home. He thinks about how his friend had smiled at him just minutes ago. Keith won’t ever get to hear Lance’s laugh again.

Lance won’t get to see his home again either. He’ll never feel the rain against his skin, or taste the salty air near the ocean. He won’t get to soak up the sun and the feeling of sand between his toes. He’ll never get to hold his siblings in his arms again.

 He’ll never get to say goodbye.

_“Little soldier boy_

_comes marching home,_

_brave soldier boy_

_come marching home.”_

Keith closes his eyes, takes in a breath, and weeps.


End file.
